The Eyes of Madness
by Unexpectations
Summary: Naruto makes a horrible mistake at the VotE. Burdened with a reminder of the team he let down and with the sins he has committed, he takes his punishment into his own hands. Rated M for blood and language. Starts off Dark, but will get better.
1. Chapter 1

THE EYES OF MADNESS  
Chapter 1

* * *

"Why did you do it?" She asked me impatiently. Her eyes were moist and red, she had obviously been crying. I shuffled my feet and looked down. I had no explanation for her, not really. "Tell me, Naruto! Now!"

"It- it was an accident! He charged me with a Chidori and I was using the Rasengan and my hand slipped and th-"

She slapped me. Hard. Tears streamed down my cheeks. And not from the slap, although it did leave my ears ringing. Barely restrained droplets pooled in her eyes. "Tell me the truth!"

"That is the truth!!" I really hadn't meant to. We were fighting, and we had lost ourselves in the violence. He was trying to kill me, and I was at that point trying to kill him. But, what I did after that…

"THEN WHY DID YOU TAKE HIS EYES?

For that I had no answer. She shook with rage and sadness and looked at me with hatred in her eyes. I could feel the betrayal and the contempt bubbling inside of her. My eyes studied hers desperately, looking for a drop of compassion - it could have been the tears obscuring my vision, but I did not find any.

Didn't she realize that I was hurting as well? "Don't ever l-look at me again. N-not with his…" Her voice caught in her throat. She wrapped her arms around herself and turned her back to me, shoulders shaking. "Not with his eyes." And she left me inside the hospital, wishing that I had let Sasuke skewer me at the Valley of the End.

It would certainly have hurt less than the hatred of my only precious people.

---TEoM---

His laughter was loud and uproarious. It shook the metal bars between us and sent shockwaves through the knee high water. "SO, YOU JUST SNAPPED, HUH?" He let loose more spiteful laughter. "THOSE EYES HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO CAUSE MADNESS, YOU KNOW!" He began cruelly. "BUT I'VE NEVER HEARD OF THEM CREATING MADNESS IN SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T EVEN HAVE THEM YET, ALTHOUGH THAT'S NOT A PROBLEM ANYMORE." He smirked at me with his huge jagged teeth. "NOT FOR YOU."

The stolen eyes spun in their sockets. "What do you want from me, demon?"

Through his guffaws, he told me, "LUCKILY FOR YOU I AM FAMILIAR WITH THOSE EYES. I GRANTED THE SHARINGAN A VERY UNIQUE GIFT MANY YEARS AGO. YOUR'S IN PARTICULAR, ARE VERY POWERFUL."

"I don't care. I will never fight again."

"DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT?" My silence spoke for me. "NO, I DIDN'T THINK YOU DID."

My rage exploded, chakra flowed, unbidden into my eyes. Madness overtook me, and so did the Kyuubi's corrosive chakra. The world slowed, became formulaic, easy and predictable. "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THESE THINGS! I DIDN'T EVEN WANT THEM!" I jammed my clawed hand into the eyes and pulled. They fell into the water, letting blood fall from the empty sockets. They floated in the water, looking up at me, still spinning.

"KEH KEH… KAH KAH KAH KAH HEH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

---TEoM---

"You stand accused of conspiracy to commit murder, and of treason against Konoha, how do you plead?"

The words fell on me like bricks. I didn't look up to acknowledge whether I had heard or not. My head resting in my hands, I kept my silence.

"For the last time, what is your plea?"

"I am guilty of these charges." The words left my throat slowly. My mouth formed them before I could think better of it. Tsunade was shocked.

"A-are you sure?" She asked from her seat high above me.

"He says that he's guilty, so he's guilty!!" One of the council members insisted. "He should be punished as soon as possible!" A gasp went through the room, followed by thunderous applause. A great deal of Konoha's population was jammed in this courtroom, and many waited outside for a verdict. Someone in the back jumped up from his seat and told the people outside that the trial was already over and that I had plead guilty. A wave of cheering and clapping hands shook the building. A chant of "Kill the demon!" Echoed through the walls.

Tsunade was at a loss and searched me with her eyes. Words fell out of her mouth, numbly, "You are to be executed at noon tomorrow. The trial… Is adjourned."

The cheers felt justified to me. They were completely correct, I am a monster. ANBU came and grabbed both of my arms. As they led me past the unrestrained crowd, my eyes scanned the faces for two people. I found them. Kakashi's eye regarded me sadly. His shoulders were slumped, and he looked very very tired. Sakura stood next to him, staring at me hollowly. There was a gleam of vindication in her gaze, but I also saw something else, with my newly improved sight.

I saw the tiniest glimmer of compassion, like a candle in a pitch black storm. That glint of compassion, of forgiveness even, washed over me and cemented my decision.

I would accept my death gladly if it lessened my sin.

Did a beast like me ever deserve life in the first place?

---TEoM---

Kakashi came to visit me late that night. He walked into my cell, and sat down on a folding chair that he brought with him. I sat in the darkest corner, hunched over myself and crying. We spoke for a long while. He reassured me that Sakura was not entirely happy about the outcome. She had said that while she was incredibly upset with me, she did not want to see me dead. To that I asked him if he wanted to see my death.

He paused for a long minute. "Did you know that the Sharingan can interpret emotion and body language even better than the Byakugan?"

"No, I didn't know that."

He lifted the forehead protector from his other eye. "Do you know what my Sharingan tells me about you?"

"I don't know in the slightest."

"It tells me that you did not mean to kill Sasuke. That it was unintentional. It tells me that you are punishing yourself for something that you did not intend."

"Intention and action are two very different things." I avoided his sight and began scratching at my left eyelid. "My actions do not match my intentions. This tells me, that something like this could happen again. I can kill without intention." Blood dripped from my finger as my nail slowly penetrated the skin of my eyelid. I dragged the nail down savagely and left a gap in my flesh. The eye had not been damaged, but blood began to pool like tears. "I cannot be allowed live. I am too unstable."

He looked at my self inflicted wound and grimaced. "Naruto…"

"Please, Kakashi, leave. Thank you for the visit." I turned away from him and said quietly, "I thank you for seeing the intentions behind my blunders. Always."

"A good shinobi sees underneath the underneath, Naruto."

---TEoM---

My execution was a morbid affair. At 15 minutes before 12 o'clock, ANBU came to bring me to the execution grounds. As we walked achingly slow to the sight of my death, I could only wonder exactly how they would go about killing me.

Would it be long and painful, or short and merciful?

* * *

A/N: This can go one of two ways, people. Naruto can die, and the story will be over or he can live and the story can continue. A plot bunny attacked me this morning and I decided to chase it and see where it went, but I'm not too attached to this. I have other stuff to work on and I shouldn't really be writing this, but I like the way it came out. Based on your response, I may or may not continue.

Review if you want to see where this goes.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Yeah, so I decided to continue it. Review if you want more soon.

* * *

He smiled at me. He always smiles, even as I yell and rage before him. Always that stupid fucking smirk on his face. "YOU BASTARD!!" I gripped the bars of his cage so hard that my fingernails bled. The blood dripped down into the water. "I was supposed to DIE!"

"I COULDN'T LET THAT HAPPEN, COULD I, NARUTO?" A dark smirk danced across his muzzle as he reached out with one of his tails to grab me. It grabbed me around the chest and wrapped me very tight, pinning my arms at my sides. He brought me through a gap in the cage that hadn't been there before. "NOW THAT YOU HAVE THOSE PRETTY LITTLE EYES IN YOUR FACE…" He brought me closer to his mouth and hovered my face right over his teeth. His breath smelt like dead animals and warm blood.

He tightened his grip on me and threw me up against the cage. I felt my spine break from the blow, and I gasped in shock at the pain. Tears fell down my cheeks, against my will.

"NOW THAT YOU HAVE THOSE EYES…" He smiled that same disgusting, abnormal smile. "I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT TO YOU," He finished cryptically before bringing me up to his mouth once more and hovering me between his jaws. He bit down.

I think he intentionally made it so that I felt every second of the pain of being chewed up and spit out. Personally, I think I looked a lot like the way ramen looked between my teeth, when he spit me out. And even with my body literally torn to shreds, and with many of my parts dripping from his muzzle and hanging on his fur, I still felt every inch of every second of pain.

"BESIDES, YOU DID THE HARD PART! I DIDN'T EVEN TAKE CONTROL!! I JUST ACTIVATED YOUR NEW EYES" He laughed deep and long. "YOU KILLED ALL THOSE PEOPLE!"

It was torture in the worst sense…

"YOU ARE GOING TO LIVE LIKE THIS FOREVER! RUNNING FROM FOES AS I TORTURE YOU EVERY NIGHT! AND JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU ARE FREE OF ME…"

and I could not scream.

"I WILL KILL YOU!!"

---TEoM---

Tsunade sat with her hands underneath her chin. "What could have made him…" She searched for words. "What could have made him do this to himself, and to all of us?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out!" He said, perched by the window. "I'm going to find out, damn it!" Jiraiya reassured himself as he threw himself from the window.

---TEoM---

Visions of blood and gore swept through her mind. A shudder ripped through her and she felt desperately like crying. But all her tears had been used on Sasuke's death. She had cried and cried during the week gap between Naruto's return and his trial.

Now that she had seen her teammate for what he was, a monster, what tears would she cry for him? She wished desperately for moisture to rain down her cheeks, and for her body to be racked with sobs and for some emotion, any emotion, to be released.

_Flashback!_

**A severed head flew in her direction. Screams were abundant, people were running and shouting in every direction except to the center of the Plaza. That's where HE was. Naruto had become similar to a ceiling fan, he seemed to be in constant motion, turning this way and that, cutting men and women down alike with his claws of chakra.**

**It was a massacre! She watched numbly as her teammate slammed his fist through a man's chest and used the dead man as a shield to block a hail of kunai and shuriken. Her legs trembled and shook and her eyes were wide a dinner plates. Watching the blood shed was not easy.**

**"Naru…" Her mouth whispered by itself. This was not her teammate. This was not the lovable dobe who pestered her for dates! This was not the same person that she had knew as her friend! This was the man who killed Sasuke!**

**This was a demon.**

**"NARUTO!!" She shouted as she brandished a kunai and ran directly into the fray.**

**Time seemed to slow down as their eyes caught each other. There were a few people between them one second and the next… They were on her, all of them. They seemed to just liquify between them, and the blood followed it's natural momentum and coated her in the blood of the innocent. The remains of these people were coating her like paint. Her mouth had been open and so she had a mouth full of gore.**

**But that was not her primary concern. He stood before her, now. Eyes boring into her soul. The tomoe of his Sharingan had turned into a spiral, which spun infinitely into his pupil. They were the windows to hell. "SAKURA." His voice seemed foreign and hollow.**

**"N… No…"**

**He grabbed her by the throat as everything burned around them. The plaza was deserted now. Even the most gritty shinobi had fled, from the sheer horror of the bloodshed. Body parts were everywhere and many innocent were dead. She clutched weakly at his arm as he slowly choked her. "I'M SORRY FOR THIS, SAKURA. I TRUELY AM!!!" He yelled into her face, sounding for all the world to be quite insane. His voice, was truly sorrowful, of that she was sure. But at the same time, it carried a certain absurdity, and it seemed that he was laughing as he cried.**

**He leaned in, and took her lips in a horrible, bloody kiss. Both of their eyes were open wide, and tears were falling down both of their cheeks. Her eyes bore into his horrifying ones. Their tears mingled and hit the floor. Sakura's of water, Naruto's of blood.**

**"TSUKUYOMI!!"****  
**

_End Flashback!_

Oh, how she wished that she could cry...

---TEoM---

Visions of the blood he shed and what I did to Sakura flooded hmy mind. There was no forgiveness for me now. None. Not ever.

I knew that, as I brought his nails up to his eyes. I tried to force them into the sockets, but no matter what I did, my arms would not follow through with the motion. They remained, hovering over the cursed orbs. I grabbed my arm at the elbow, and tried to gouge them out with renewed fervor. But the only place I could do that would be in my dreams, with the fox watching over me. Laughing at me.

My hand still poised over my eyes, I took a running start and slammed myself against a rock, to use the force to jam them into these horrible eyes. But at the last moment, my head moved, and my finger changed direction. I was left with a large gash running up my eyelid. A growl rising in my throat, I clawed desperately at Sasuke's eyes in my head. Cuts and slices were removed from everywhere but where I wanted them to.

"Is this my life?"

I grabbed myself by the throat and tried to slit my own jugular. But I missed, and left a long gash running up my jawbone. The fox would not let it end. Not today, and not ever.

"I guess that if I can't kill myself..." It was a logical conclusion really. "I'll just have to find someone who can."

And the chase was on. The chase for peace and the chase for rest. The only chase that really mattered anymore.

My frantic Pursuit of Death.

And these cursed eyes, these Eyes of Madness, would guide the way.


End file.
